How online competency-based education can enable greater access to higher education

The landscape of higher education in the United States has been transformed in recent decades by disruptive changes, such as for-profit universities, online education, an aging workforce, funding decreases, and tuition increases. According to Rubin (2013), higher education institutions’ costs continue to rise while state funding is being reduced. As a result, most schools have raised tuition significantly in recent years. As the costs continue to climb, a traditional college education becomes unaffordable for more students (Christensen & Eyring, 2011). Clearly, the rising cost of higher education is becoming a larger burden in need of attention. Institutions must find ways to control their costs or tuition will continue to rise and higher education will be less accessible. “Mere budget cutting will not be enough. For the vast majority of institutions, fundamental change is essential” (Christensen & Eyring, 2011, p. 50). According to Johnstone and Soares (2014), an affordable college education is the answer to economic competitiveness and individuals’ personal success.

In addition, Zumeta et al. (2012) highlight the fact that today's workforce needs to be able to learn and use new technologies, have problem-solving skills, and have more diverse knowledge than ever before. Johnstone and Soares (2014) express that there is a current gap between college graduates’ skills and what employers are demanding. Given these needs, opportunities exist for models of higher education which are more accessible to the underserved portions of the population that are still not receiving the necessary education and/or skills to participate in the workforce.

One of the major underserved populations in the United States is the nontraditional adult learner (NAL). Chen (2017) states that despite the fact that approximately 38% of postsecondary learners are NALs, current efforts largely fall short of meeting their needs and treat NALs as having “secondary student status” within the institution. Chen (2017) also argues that despite the need for NALs to be educated for the workforce, institutions largely focus improvement efforts on items that privilege traditional-aged students, with the exception of expanded online offerings. For example, it is common for institutions to spend millions improving residence and dining halls, fitness centers, and other structures that largely support traditional-aged students’ lifestyles.

Rubin (2013) states that state governments have begun to put pressure on universities to change by focusing on improving access to education and leveraging the benefits of online learning. Given the challenges universities face in meeting enrollment targets and balancing the budget, tremendous opportunities exist for schools to address NAL and other students’ needs in order to provide a diversified enrollment stream. Chen (2017) argues that competency-based education (CBE) is a good fit for NALs because of its flexibility. Online CBE programs can provide NALs and other learners with flexible programming and self-paced learning many desire. In addition, the model can also lessen time to complete a degree and therefore lower the total cost of a degree for students. CBE appears to not only be a valid, flexible, cost-saving option for students, but it also presents attractive financial advantages for higher education institutions as well.

Competency-based education is defined by Kelchen (2015) as “a form of higher education in which credit is provided on the basis of student learning rather than credit or clock hours” (p. ii). This model has recently exploded in popularity and is the focus of institutions seeking to innovate their educational offering and policymakers seeking to reform higher education. In CBE, students can take the amount of time they need to master a specific competency. Students typically demonstrate their mastery of a competency through projects (Krause, Dias, & Schedler, 2015) or exams. The competencies are typically established through partnerships with industry experts and employers, which build a bridge between the educational world and the “real world,” or the workplace (Hill, 2012; Johnstone & Soares, 2014).

According to Chen (2017), CBE has been around since at least the 1970s but has recently resurged in the form of online CBE. Christensen and Eyring (2011) note that more students are deciding to enroll in online education than ever before. Not all students want the campus living experience, and more students are choosing the convenience and cost savings of living at home, taking classes online on their own schedule, and having the option to work a job at the same time (Christensen & Eyring, 2011). In addition, Hill (2012) suggests that online education should be utilized to create lower cost structures for higher education institutions. As online education continues to boom, institutions have begun to leverage its advantages and pair it with the advantages of CBE. Some of the biggest institutions in the online CBE space are Western Governors University, Northern Arizona University, Southern New Hampshire University, and the University of Wisconsin (Kelchen, 2015). The vast majority of students entering into CBE programs are age 25 or older (Kelchen, 2016).

Online CBE has the potential to move higher education away from the seat time model and instead focus on more valid measurements of student learning. In addition, the recent developments with the Department of Education and WGU may very well lead to meaningful reform of outdated distance education policies. Fixing these policies may lead to the viability of other alternative distance education models becoming eligible for financial aid.

Having been a part of bringing online CBE to a university over the past few years, I have seen firsthand that it is no easy feat. Faculty are mostly resistant to this concept and most cannot conceptualize how they could possibly do it. The fear of adjuncts “taking over” is a major concern for faculty. After attending a few of the major CBE conferences over the last few years, my biggest take away was that the CBE space is still “messy.” Kelchen (2015) mentions that there does not appear to be a standard definition of what CBE actually is or looks like, even from schools currently deploying CBE programs. I have found this to be true and a one-size-fits-all model to implement a program simply does not exist. In short, there are too many contextual factors that differ by institution for anyone to say, “here's how you implement an online CBE program.” CBE may be able to provide new enrollment to schools, but there are fixed and variable costs that will need to be incurred to implement and sustain CBE. Training faculty and staff, hiring for specific responsibilities that were disaggregated from the faculty role, course development, and providing just-in-time learner support are all examples of costs that quickly add up when implementing a CBE model.

Gaining accreditation is also of major concern. Even some accreditors do not appear to have all the answers. There does not appear to be much consensus into what the requirements of CBE are or what should or should not be included and why.

The online CBE space has already begun to lower the cost of education for students and provide needed alternatives to traditional models of education. Many students have already benefitted from these programs because they provide students the flexibility they desire at a lower cost (at least opportunity cost) than traditional universities. As more schools adopt online CBE models, research into the effectiveness of these models, the costs of attendance for the students compared with traditional models, and the costs of administering the program to the institution compared with traditional programs will be important determinants of how disruptive online CBE truly is to the landscape of higher education.

No conflicts declared.